Another term is over and the end of this term always brings the most excitement as we get prepared for all the festive celebrations!

We started the half term strong with our wonderful Ofsted inspection report being published, we are very proud of our report, the team, our Little Owls and their families, we did it together!

After the half term break fireworks filled the skies and also filled Little Owls with lots of learning opportunities, we danced like fireworks, we threaded fireworks, we created fireworks and we made sure that we stayed safe around fireworks!

Nursery rhyme week is always a favourite at Little Owls and as always, the Little Owls team did not disappoint. Such a variety of activities to entice the children, challenging them and developing skills, pouring tea from our teapot, building Humpty Dumpty’s wall, washing Incy out and finding twinkly letter stars in the sand! You will be able to see lots of the activities on our social media pages. Nursery rhymes are great for supporting early language and communication and developing those early literacy skills.

The Little Owls embraced road safety week too, learning about signs they might see when out and about, the traffic light sequence and our zebra crossing was put to good use too as we practiced crossing the road safely. When you are out and about what signs can you see and what do they mean?

I have said before in the blog that we never know where our learning will take us as we follow the children’s interests, well we followed the children’s interests into the deep dark wood, that’s right an absolute classic that we all love The Gruffalo! The team love to run with a theme and in the moment activities came thick and fast, dressing up, recipes, cave building, creating, so much fun. Hearing the children retell the story to each other was so lovely for the team to hear. It is important in the early years to nurture a love of reading. At Little Owls, we support this by reading to the children, retelling stories and encouraging role play you can support this at home too.

The build up to Christmas then started with the trustees creating wonderful hampers for the 12 days of Christmas raffle. A huge thank you to everyone that donated and purchased tickets, you raised a fantastic   £326!!! These funds are so important to enhance our provision at Little Owls and we can feel a little revamp of the reading area coming! The Little Owls decorated our trees, and I think we can all agree they did a fabulous job, just a little help with the higher branches! Christmas books appeared on the bookshelves as did puzzles, festive crafts started to be created, and the activities hit a whole new level of sparkle! Some of the children wrote letters to Santa and even though he is so busy he managed to reply, it was a magical letter to share with the children. Our Little Owls are always helpful, and they kept busy helping to wrap gifts and write cards. We then ended the term with our Christmas party, fun, dancing, games, food and friends, best combination ever! The children and the team had such a lovely time.

We would like to say a big thank you to everyone for all your support, kind words and gifts, it always means so much to the team.

We wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.